coughs and kisses
I am currently dealing with my third bout of acute bronchitis for this year, oh joy. I would have thought that living in a city with clean fresh mountain air would be good for the lungs (no haze here!) but nope, the moment I catch a bug from the kids, it's back to the cortisones, the antibiotics, and my old faithful friend, Ventolin. The kids seemed to bounce back from their mild colds without much fuss and without a visit to their doctor, but I spent the weekend feverishly wheezing until I was nearly blue in the face, and finally managed to get an appointment to see my doctor on Tuesday.
This doctor recently changed practices and is now in a small dual-partnership practice in a different office. I congratulated her on her move and she says she's doing well, especially because many of her patients, like me, decided to continue with her even after she moved. I like her because she is friendly, pragmatic, and as a working mother with three young children, has a good understanding of the trials and tribulations of family life.
For example: I brought up the issue of my PMS and how every month my raging hormones make me want to eat the contents of the entire larder, scream at the children because they dropped three crumbs onto the kitchen floor, throttle the husband for (noisily) breathing, and run away into the European continent, never to be seen again. (Actually, that last bit isn't hormone-dependent, it's a constant wish.) I told her all this, literally saying 'for one week each month I want to kill the children and the husband and run away.' And then I asked if a homeopathic pill recommended by a friend could possibly work. She laughed heartily and said she didn't think it actually worked, but she would write me a prescription to try it out for a month to see if the placebo effect was... well, effective. (She really did say that. Score another one for her.)
So I asked her what she did, for PMS, and she laughed again and told me that while she also contemplated running away from her own family, she mostly satisfied this urge by spending time alone and away, like going for a meal in a restaurant, a movie, etc. 'Just until the worst blows over,' she said, and then did the classic Gallic shrug which can be roughly translated as 'such is life, what are you going to do about it.' Alors là!
Final note: when I said this doctor was on good terms with all of her patients, I really meant it. While sitting at the waiting room, I watched rather disbelievingly when she came out to the waiting area to greet the patient before me, kissing her on the cheek thrice. When it came to my turn, she obviously recognised me and did the same. After my appointment was over, she greeted the man waiting for her with, yes, three bisous. I like my doctor because she's nice and friendly, but wow - that woman either has a cast-iron immunity or a massive stock of anti-bacterial gel.
This doctor recently changed practices and is now in a small dual-partnership practice in a different office. I congratulated her on her move and she says she's doing well, especially because many of her patients, like me, decided to continue with her even after she moved. I like her because she is friendly, pragmatic, and as a working mother with three young children, has a good understanding of the trials and tribulations of family life.
For example: I brought up the issue of my PMS and how every month my raging hormones make me want to eat the contents of the entire larder, scream at the children because they dropped three crumbs onto the kitchen floor, throttle the husband for (noisily) breathing, and run away into the European continent, never to be seen again. (Actually, that last bit isn't hormone-dependent, it's a constant wish.) I told her all this, literally saying 'for one week each month I want to kill the children and the husband and run away.' And then I asked if a homeopathic pill recommended by a friend could possibly work. She laughed heartily and said she didn't think it actually worked, but she would write me a prescription to try it out for a month to see if the placebo effect was... well, effective. (She really did say that. Score another one for her.)
So I asked her what she did, for PMS, and she laughed again and told me that while she also contemplated running away from her own family, she mostly satisfied this urge by spending time alone and away, like going for a meal in a restaurant, a movie, etc. 'Just until the worst blows over,' she said, and then did the classic Gallic shrug which can be roughly translated as 'such is life, what are you going to do about it.' Alors là!
Final note: when I said this doctor was on good terms with all of her patients, I really meant it. While sitting at the waiting room, I watched rather disbelievingly when she came out to the waiting area to greet the patient before me, kissing her on the cheek thrice. When it came to my turn, she obviously recognised me and did the same. After my appointment was over, she greeted the man waiting for her with, yes, three bisous. I like my doctor because she's nice and friendly, but wow - that woman either has a cast-iron immunity or a massive stock of anti-bacterial gel.